The Last Ottomans: The Muslim Minority of Greece 1940–1949

378 Pages·2011·3.585 MB·English

by  Kevin Featherstone, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis, Georgios Niarchos (auth.)

New Perspectives on South-East Europe Series
Series Editors: Spyros Economides, Senior Lecturer in International Relations and
European Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Kevin Featherstone, Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies, London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK.
Sevket Pamuk, Professor of Contemporary Turkish Studies, London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK.
Series Advisory Board:
Richard Crampton, Emeritus Professor of Eastern European History at St Edmund
Hall, University of Oxford.
Vladimir Gligorov, Staff Economist specialising in Balkan countries, The Vienna
Institute for International Economic Studies, Austria.
Jacques Rupnik, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre d’études et de recherches
internationales, Sciences Po, France.
Susan Woodward, Professor, The Graduate Programme in Political Science at The
City University of New York, USA.
South-East Europe presents a compelling agenda: a region that has challenged
European identities, values and interests like no other at formative periods of modern
history, and is now undergoing a set of complex transitions. It is a region made up of
new and old EU member states, as well as aspiring ones; early ‘democratising’ states
and new post-communist regimes; states undergoing liberalising economic reforms,
partially inspired by external forces, whilst coping with their own embedded nation-
alisms; and states obliged to respond to new and recurring issues of security, identity,
well-being, social integration, faith and secularisation.
This series examines issues of inheritance and adaptation. The disciplinary reach
incorporates politics and international relations, modern history, economics and
political economy and sociology. It links the study of South-East Europe across a
number of social sciences to European issues of democratisation and economic
reform in the post-transition age. It addresses ideas as well as institutions; policies as
well as processes. It will include studies of the domestic and foreign policies of single
states, relations between states and peoples in the region, and between the region
and beyond. The EU is an obvious reference point for current research on South-East
Europe, but this series also highlights the importance of South-East Europe in its
eastern context; the Caucasus; the Black Sea and the Middle East.
Titles in the series include:
Ayhan Aktar, Niyazi Kizilyürek and Umut Özkirimli (editors)
NATIONALISM IN THE TROUBLED TRIANGLE
Cyprus, Greece and Turkey
Kevin Featherstone, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis and
Georgios Niarchos
THE LAST OTTOMANS
The Muslim Minority of Greece, 1940–1949
Alexis Heraclides
THE GREEK-TURKISH CONFLICT IN THE AEGEAN
Imagined Enemies
New Perspectives on South-East Europe
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–23052–1 (hardback) and
ISBN 978–0–230–23053–8 (paperback)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your
name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
The Last Ottomans
The Muslim Minority of
Greece, 1940–1949
Kevin Featherstone
Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies, London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK
Dimitris Papadimitriou
Reader in European Politics, Department of Politics,
University of Manchester, UK
Argyris Mamarelis
Research Fellow, European Institute, London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK
and
Georgios Niarchos
Research Fellow, European Institute, London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK
© Kevin Featherstone, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis,
Georgios Niarchos 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-23251-8
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-31283-2 ISBN 978-0-230-29465-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137294653
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
‘του Τσίφτη,
για τις μεσημεριανές ιστορίες’

Contents
List of Boxes x
List of Tables xii
List of Maps and Plates xiii
List of Abbreviations xiv
List of Place Names xvi
Preface xxi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 An historical puzzle: the Muslims of Western
Thrace during two wars 1
1.2 Positioning the case study 5
1.3 A note on sources and methodology 7
2 The Muslim Community of Western Thrace in Context 11
2.1 Introduction 11
2.2 The physical and human geography of Western Thrace 12
Location, location, location 12
Distant neighbours 18
2.3 Stillborn attempts for Thracian statehood 24
The Tamrash (Тъмръш) Rebellion (1878–1886) 25
The Republic of Gümülcine (1913) 27
The Turkish Republic of Western Thrace (1920) 30
The question of Thrace within the context
of socialist internationalism 33
2.4 The ‘minoritisation’ of the Muslims of Western Thrace 36
2.5 The political orientation of the minority during the 1930s 41
Between Ottoman ‘traditionalism’ and Kemalist ‘progress’ 41
The electoral behaviour of the Muslim
minority in the 1930s 45
2.6 Conclusion 51
3 On the Path to War 54
3.1 Introduction 54
3.2 Shifting balances in the Balkans: the international
context prior to WWII 55
3.3 Western Thrace prepares for war 65
3.4 The Muslim community of Western Thrace
and the outbreak of war 69
vii
viii Contents
3.5 Changing loyalties: the battle(s) for Turkey’s neutrality 83
3.6 Conclusion 90
4 Belomorie 91
4.1 Introduction 91
4.2 The arrival of the Bulgarian administration 91
4.3 Accounts of Bulgarian repression 93
4.4 The economic impact of the Bulgarian occupation 101
4.5 Wartime population movements 108
4.6 Education and religion as vehicles of Bulgarian nationalism 113
4.7 Smaller minority groups in wartime Western Thrace 120
The Armenian community 120
The Roma community 123
The Jewish community 125
4.8 Conclusions 129
5 Strategies for Survival 131
5.1 Introduction 131
5.2 The onset of resistance activity in occupied Greece 132
5.3 The activity of EAM-ELAS in Western Thrace 136
5.4 The activity of the nationalist resistance
groups in Western Thrace 143
5.5 Muslim collaboration with the Bulgarian forces 148
5.6 The Turkish Consulate of Komotini 152
5.7 Conclusions 156
6 In-Between Two Wars 158
6.1 Introduction 158
6.2 The fall of the Bulgarian empire 159
The Allies advance 159
Bulgaria tries to stay 160
Playing the ‘Pomak Card’ 166
6.3 A muted liberation 174
6.4 From chaos to chaos 184
The Muslim community at the polls 186
No turning back 188
6.5 Conclusion 189
7 Çekiç Ile Örs Arasinda (Between a Rock and a Hard Place) 192
7.1 Introduction 192
7.2 Muslim soldiers of the Proletarian revolution 193
The military strategy of the DSE in Western Thrace 194
DSE recruitment and violence in Muslim villages 196
The Ottoman Battalion of the DSE 204
Women recruitment in the Ottoman battalion 207
The endgame of the civil war 210
Contents ix
7.3 Good Muslim, bad Muslim 215
Muslim recruitment in the Greek army and
government-sponsored militias 217
Evidence of state-induced violence against
the Muslim community 222
Court-Martial cases involving members
of the Muslim community 226
7.4 The battle for Muslim hearts and minds 229
Communist propaganda in the Rhodope Mountains 229
State-organised anti-communist propaganda 235
7.5 Conclusion 242
8 Parallel Universes 245
8.1 Introduction 245
8.2 The Muslim community between two authorities 245
The return of the Greek state to Western Thrace 245
The Soviet Muslim Republic of Western Thrace 250
8.3 Muslim immigration to Turkey during the civil war 259
Immigration tales 260
The response of the Greek authorities to
the Muslim emigration 264
8.4 Welfare provision for the ‘guerrilla-stricken’ 268
The distribution of government aid in Western Thrace 269
The welfare of children as an instrument of war 273
8.5 Minority education during the civil war 277
Educating ‘nationally-minded’ Greeks 279
Educating Muslim communists 284
8.6 Conclusion 289
9 Conclusion 291
9.1 The strategic relevance of kindred minorities 292
9.2 Resistance and insurgency 294
9.3 Identity, ‘groupness’ and war 297
9.4 Future research 301
9.5 The nexus between past and present 302
Sources 305
Index 333